Is the release date for this ex[ansion allready announced?

So far my best guess is late 2012...  Which might be considerably after GW2 released. GW2 has the potential to offer the people a game expereience better then WoW, espescially for those that have been playing WoW for ages, in which case it would be better to offer the fresh content before GW2 releases, to keep people from trying the B2P game.

The Pandas might be in trouble.. who knows, malkes me wonder what Blizzard is thinking, and when they are planning their next MMO title, with fresh and exciting gameplay

I'm guessing somewhere in august/september. I don't think Blizzard will be rushing or doing anything drastic due to GW2. While they may be seen as competitors, there's one major difference. GW2 doesn't have a subscription model. You can play both, get the best of both worlds and still only pay one sub. Unless you're very casual, you are bound to hit that point where you run out of content and when that happens, you can just play the other MMO without having to worry about unsubscribing one of them and potentially lose contact with some in-game people for that period of time. I'm pretty sure that because of that, we will see a group of people who do both. Like using WoW for raiding and challenge modes with the guild and their friends while using GW2 when a break is needed. I certainly plan on doing both unless GW2 turns out to be so vastly superior that I can't justify subscribing to WoW once I've done the MoP content that I want to do.

August 17th.

Honestly, groups are running dungeons in the game already... it will not be that much longer.  

The publisher would probably prefer some time around Thanksgiving.  But that's much too long to go without new content.  Not being in the Beta, I have no idea.

Early June.  For sure.  People will leave in droves due to the last patch being 4-5 months old already.  The content is already completed by most people at this point. 

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

The publisher would probably prefer some time around Thanksgiving.  But that's much too long to go without new content.  Not being in the Beta, I have no idea.

They are really pretty far along in beta.  I was surprised at how smooth the dungeons are.  I really could see them having it by June, but my guess is still August.

There are a bunch of things obviously not done, but it seems to be spread between the different teams pretty evenly, so you can see it all coming together sooner rather than latter.

my guess would be Q4 2012